Systemic leadership: ethical and effective

Abstract

Develops a view of leadership appropriate to post‐industrial organizations in situations of rapid change. These organizations are described as systems needing continual renewal if they are to survive, and “chaotic” in that they must find direction in the context of pressures for change. Leadership is the systemic capacity, diffused and nurtured throughout the organization, of finding direction, of fostering the processes which ensure renewal, and of “managing” the systemic and human paradoxes endemic in these organizations. Systemic leadership is ethical in that it creates community, encourages autonomy and creativity and “intends” the good in its purposes and practices, and effective in that it fosters “emergence” and organizational renewal.